By “Publius”
[Per Wikipedia: The Federalist (later known as The Federalist Papers) is a collection of 85 articles and essays written (under the pseudonym Publius) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution.
Or so it was thought until recently, when a hitherto-unknown 86th article, concerning a certain kind of political candidate, was discovered in an attic in a house in a Connecticut town. Based on its literary style, experts attribute it to James Madison. For this reason, and considering the time in which it was written, it is understandable (if unfortunate) that the writer’s depiction of candidates for elective office are restricted to men. That said, we present it here without comment, save for the observation that Madison proved uncannily prescient in his description of a type of political figure with which today, 230 years later, we must contend. – E.W.]
A candid assessment of any human society must needs admit of the fact that, however discomfiting or upsetting, however much it might cast doubt upon or stimulate skepticism as regards the religiously-held view that Man was, and presumably is, shaped in the image of his divine creator, a certain proportion of men are ass-holes. Further, it is the case that such distressing and bothersome examples of humanity are to be found at every stratum of civilization. From this follows the sad but indisputable fact that, in a republican form of government, in which a nation’s legislators and executives are selected from among volunteers and aspirants to such offices from the general population, an inevitable segment of such candidates will consist of such behind-fissures and, depending on both the intelligence and good sense of the voting public and on the political machinations at play among the various factions and parties participating in an election, sometimes an ass-hole will be elevated to public office.
But, while the destructive consequences of such an event cannot be overstated, before enumerating and anatomizing those consequences it is necessary to inquire as to what qualities, of character and behavior, typify the anal-aperture.
Of these, some are self-evident and universally acknowledged.
The ass-hole, in his classic and historically enduring embodiment, is from Queens. (It is to be noted that not every person from that estimable borough may or should be thus characterized.) He has inherited wealth from his father, and has used it, not only in the cause of his personal enrichment, but to advance his position in society. He is successful in the former endeavor, although to what extent is shrouded in secrecy, as is the magnitude of his debt to banks, his obligations to foreign potentates and obscure mercantile institutions, and his coerced subservience to the Russians. As for his strenuous efforts to attain social rank and win respect among the great, he is in that striving a notable failure and, as is evident to every eye, a big fat joke. In spite of his continual boasts to the contrary, he is admired by no persons of accomplishment, he is hailed by no one of true renown, and he is accepted — indeed, he is warmly welcomed — into the circles only of the desperately mediocre, the baldly self-interested, the proudly tasteless, the ruthlessly ambitious, and the Russians.
He has been married a minimum of three times. He is a dick-head and, more often than not, a douche-nozzle. His hair, which presents an unsettlingly marsupial aspect, is the apotheosis of self-parodying vanity. Motivated by an unquenchable insecurity, he cannot endure the slightest public mockery or disdain, without responding to it in impulsive bursts of childish pique. He is, thus, a great big baby who is simultaneously an orange-tinted fuck-nugget.
In light of these negative qualities, it may be wondered how the bum-gap is able to attain any elective office at all, let alone one near or at the apex of a Federal government. For such a calamity to occur — and it must be noted that the ascension of the ass-hole to any office higher than that of cashier at The International House of Burgesses is inevitably a calamity — several conditions must obtain. The voting populace must consist of a large, if not preponderant, number of idiots. The rear-fissure must himself be skilled in the lowest forms of demagoguery and rabble-rousing, the better to conceal his complete unfamiliarity with the office for which he is running, the values of the polity it serves, the manifold facts and truths concerning the world at large, and essentially everything except his own self-infatuated self-regard. He must be a skilled, or at least relentless, liar. There must be sufficient discontent abroad in the electorate so as to generate disquiet about the future and disenchantment with the previous office holder. And his opponent must become hobbled by his own personal shortcomings, his errors in campaigning, and by the actions of subversive external powers.
As for the dangers of rule-by-ass-hole, we need only enumerate the most egregious, which include widespread corruption in the form of monies tendered in exchange for political favours and government contracts, the undemocratic suppression of political enemies, the abrogation of personal freedoms, a hobbling of scientific and cultural advancement, ineptitude in the arts of international diplomacy and a consequent danger of war or other military misadventure, the scapegoating of minority factions in times of controversy, and virtually unlimited public exposure to the ass-hole’s hideous progeny, relatives, courtiers, flatterers, and the Russians.
How, it will be asked, can a republic defend itself against the possibility of such a pudge-teated shite-gibbon attaining high office? For this it is necessary that men of good character, regardless of political outlook or affiliation, speak in concert in identifying the ass-hole as such, and that they not allow their various factional ambitions to dilute a concerted opposition to the peril the ass-hole represents.
Further, it is necessary that the legitimate desires and needs of the electorate, their valid complaints and protestations, and their justifiable grievances be acknowledged and addressed by the incumbent office-holders before such voters be tempted to succumb to the demagogue’s skill at enflaming men’s baser passions at the expense of their reason. To some, the ass-hole is manifestly and transparently a cheddar-hued mountebank, a strutting piss-bag, a lying fraud, and a friend of the Russians. To the angry, the impoverished, the hopeless, the ignored, and the ignorant, the ass-hole is simultaneously a world-historical hero who has achieved the paramount of success, and an exemplar of common thinking, whose thoughts and opinions mirror their own. That these two characteristics are incompatible, and their co-existence an absurdity, does not occur to those of this mind.
Absent these considerations, we must concede it possible that a heinie-outlet might obtain election to a high, or indeed the highest, office. In such a case, it would be every citizen’s duty to resist, protest, and oppose such a person, in ways consistent with a polity’s values of law and fairness. That the ass-hole is a total crap-sack scum-parcel fuck-face, does not legitimize his opposition’s deterioration into actions equally deplorable.
